This invention relates to the building field and to devices that can assist people, with or without handicaps, in gaining ingress and egress from buildings. This invention is directed, particularly, toward adding a mechanical advantage and ease of operation to a person""s effort in opening sliding doors.
Sliding doors are conventionally used in many applications as both interior and exterior doors. Usually these doors are referred to as pocket doors when mounted inside partitions between rooms. These doors may, indeed, slide on tracks laid on the floor or they may move on rollers in the bottom of the doors or tracks. Sometimes, they are hung from tracks mounted on the wall or ceiling connected to the top of the doors. In all applications, the sliding doors move horizontally parallel to a wall to open or close a door opening in the wall.
One of the more popular uses of the sliding door is in private homes and apartments as a glass exterior door, opening onto a deck or patio. The architectural and styling advantages of such doors are well known. However, either because of considerations of the doors moving in close proximity to each other or the wall or, simply, a sleeker style, the doors usually do not have any substantial handle for operation. In most cases, the doors have indentations that will accommodate the ends of the fingers. A person only has this small purchase to operate the door.
The operation of sliding doors is of no consequence to the young and fit with both hands free. But for those with weakened muscles, bone and joint problems, such as arthritis, such doors present a problem. Also, for everyone who tries to use a sliding door when their hands or arms are otherwise occupied with objects, the lack of a handle proves frustrating.
What is lacking in the prior art is a simple door opener that will operate a sliding door through use of the weight of the body, without the use of the hands, and adds mechanical advantage to the amount of force applied to the opener.
There are many foot operated door openers in the prior art however, the devices have not become popular consumer items. Such a situation usually results from the costs of the devices and/or the complexity of installation and reliability of use.
Representative of the prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,661 to Finkelstein et al, entitled, Sliding Door Foot Treadle. The disclosure is directed to opening refrigerator doors by a foot assist that moves the door in three dimensions. The treadle is an L-shaped lever mounted on the refrigerator by a bolt through the juncture of the legs of the L. One downwardly extending leg is positioned against the edge of the door and the other leg extends horizontally as the treadle. Stepping on the treadle rotates the downwardly extending leg against the edge of the door for opening the door. In this construction, the downwardly extending leg wears against the edge of the door. Further, the treadle leg and the operating leg must bear all the opening load on the unsupported ends of the legs which could lead to failure or bending of the either leg.
A foot operated door opener is formed as a triangular frame. The frame has an angular apex joint opposite the longer leg. The apex has an axle therethrough which is rotatably connected to a wall adjacent a sliding door. Pressure on the end of one leg of the frame causes rotation of the frame about the axle. The rotation causes another end of the frame to engage the sliding door and move it laterally to partially open the door.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the instant invention to teach a simple, easily installed foot operated door opener for applying a lateral force to a sliding door.
It is a further objective of the instant invention to teach a sliding door opener with a reinforced lever arms for withstanding repeated usage and large loads without failure.
It is yet another objective of the instant invention to teach a spring loaded door opener that automatically returns to a starting position upon release of foot pressure.
It is a still further objective of the invention teach the provision of a structure to convert arcuate movement to lateral movement and protect the integrity of the door.
Other objectives and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention. The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.